In offshore oil production, it is common for several oil wells in the seabed to be joined by corresponding flowlines to an oil manifold on the seabed.
This entails the positioning near the oil manifold of flowline sections in a preferably horizontal, or approximately horizontal, position. After the installation in this position, each horizontal flowline section may be connected by flowlines to an oil well on one end and to the oil manifold on the other end.
A problem is that the flowline section is preferably lowered in a vertical orientation from a ship, after which it has to be brought into a properly oriented horizontal or approximately horizontal position.